If you're John Stossel and you want to host a segment to rail against the US Environmental Protection Agency, who ought you call?

It turns out, a man who was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison for defrauding the EPA!

Stossel's guest last night, Jay Lehr, was sentenced to six months–serving three–in a minimum security federalprison back in 1991, and his organization at the time wasfined $200,000. So Jay Lehr knows about EPA corruption better than anyone: he was the guy caught “falsifying employee time sheets on a government contract” for EPA, according to theColumbus Dispatch.

Corporate-controlled media outlets have figured out that debate, or more appropriately heated debate and confrontation, can generate larger audiences than a bunch of people sitting around a table agreeing with one another. And this can work for some topics, such as the best way to tackle immigration reform or how to reduce the federal budget deficit.

But when faced with an issue that clearly only has one side, the corporate media continues to parade anti-reality talking heads into their studios, hoping that they can help boost ratings. That is what has happened with the issue of climate change.

The American media have not been the only guilty parties. Media outlets in other parts of the world have been just as willing to put climate change deniers on television to spread misinformation about an issue that will effect the lives of all of earth’s inhabitants.

But unlike the American media, outlets in the rest of the world have realized that the issue of climate change is far too important to allow deniers on their networks to attack the scientific consensus with no actual evidence.

This month, the BBC instructed its reporters to stop giving credence to climate change deniers on the air. The network said that they do want to remain neutral on scientific issues, but that there is a very real distinction between neutrality and false balance. Think Progress explains the difference between the two:

So he has one of his producers on the hunt today, apparently scrambling last minute, looking for “the very best arguments” to support climate change denial. Here's the email DeSmogBlog received this morning:

I feel for O'Reilly's producers, honestly. It must be tough to face this “very tight deadline” problem when asked to provide factual support for a baseless, ideologically-motivated assumption.

Good luck, Robert and friends. It's a difficult job making stuff up so your boss can maintain his politically driven network's ignorance about climate science.

“DeSmogBlog.com appears to be the main source of allegations that 'FrackNation' was industry-funded,” wrote the Post. “DeSmogBlog claims connections between [film Co-Director Phelim] McAleer and conservative groups, industry groups help[ing] promote the film after its was made, and the fact that McAleer directed an industry-funded documentary in the past, as proof that 'FrackNation' is cut from the same cloth.”

We've now entered the fourth day of the government shutdown, and the economic impacts are already being felt by states all over America. As it turns out, the environmental services provided by the government – everything from running our national park system to renewable energy development – is quite an important part of our economy.

The most obvious and immediate effect is the loss of roughly $76 million every day from the closure of national parks and zoos. This loss of revenue will have a ripple effect throughout local economies, impacting small businesses, restaurants, lodges, and so on.

According to the Center for American Progress, the hit to the National Parks Service is adding “insult to injury,” as they were hit particularly hard by previous funding cuts, as well as the sequester cuts earlier this year:

Since 2010, the budget to operate national parks has been slashed by 13 percent in today’s dollars, or $315 million. Chronic underfunding of national parks and public lands has contributed to an estimated $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance at national parks.

As a result of mandatory funding cuts under the sequester, the national parks were unable to hire 1,900 workers for the busy 2013 summer season. Several national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Glacier National Park, and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, had to implement seasonal closures, reduce visitor-center hours, and cancel interpretive programs. Twenty-nine national wildlife refuges had to close for hunting in 2013 as a result of the sequester.

But even though tourists won’t be able to enjoy our federal lands, the dirty energy industry is still allowed full access. As the funding for energy exploration is provided by the companies themselves, they are exempt from the federal rules put in place that demand all “non-essential” services be immediately put on hold.

Media Matters put out a video this past week with clips of all the recent FOX News mentions of a global warming name conspiracy. The Fox 'conspiracy' is that 'liberals' stopped calling it global warming and started calling it climate change. Little did they realize, apparently, that the man responsible for the partisan polarization over the terminology of climate change vs. global warming is none other than FOX News contributor Frank Luntz. Watch:

As Media Matters points out:
Scientists use “global warming” when speaking about the increase in average global surface temperatures. They use “climate change” to refer to all the other disruptions that greenhouse gas emissions are causing – from rising sea levels, to abruptly changing precipitation patterns that increase the likelihood of droughtsand wildfires in certain areas and extreme flooding in others, to acidifying oceans that disturb the marine food web.

Bill O'Reilly has been put on notice by a former fan who claims to have watched his Fox News show every day and took his word for it that climate change is nothing to worry about. Well, today she watched the incredible new documentary film 'Chasing Ice' and left the theater determined to educate all of her friends (whom she had convinced that global warming was fake) about the reality of climate change.

Have you seen 'Chasing Ice' yet? (Watch the trailer below the fold.)

Here is a prime example why it is such an important film. Please spread the word far and wide. This could be a game changer for those who've been misled by Fox News.

Figures such as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, former President Bill Clinton, writer and activist Bill McKibben, environmental reporter Mark Hertsgaard, and numerous others all have connected the dots between the tragedy in New York City and its excerbation at the hands of climate change.

On the other side of the spectrum, no matter how bad the tragedy, it seems, climate change denial will continue apace by the “merchants of doubt.” Hurricane Sandy was no exception this time around.

Forecast the Facts created a petition demanding that the “PBS ombudsman…immediately investigate how this segment came to be aired,” stating that, “This is the kind of reporting we expect from Fox News, not PBS.”

What's at play here goes above and beyond a single bad story by “Newshour.” Rather, it's a small piece and the result of an aggressive campaign that's been going on for nearly two decades to destroy public television in the public interest.

Based on the shift in how the “Newshour” has funded itself over the years, it's evident that the once-esteemed ”MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour” streamed on the Public Broadcasting System has transformed PBS into what investigative reporter Greg Palast calls the “Petroleum Broadcasting System.”

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"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE